


Insecurity

by Garnigal



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: School Shootings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3883381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garnigal/pseuds/Garnigal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greendale trends to the ridiculous. But a school shooting has them all taking things a bit more seriously. Jeff POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insecurity

**Author's Note:**

> School shooting - no major character death, all violence off-screen. Psychological effects, rather than physical.
> 
> Written several years ago, but not posted until now.

After two years, it’s second nature to cringe at the first crackle through the Greendale Community College PA system in anticipation of whatever awkward double-entendre the Dean is going to come out with next. So he does, but there’s nothing to cringe about. It’s not even Dean Pelton’s voice, but the Dean’s assistant.

“Attention Greendale. Please move to the nearest room with a locking door and remain there with the door locked until security comes to escort you off campus. I repeat, remain in a locked room until security comes to get you. Thank you.”

The room goes quiet and still for a moment, until Annie jumps to her feet and locks the doors. It’s Colorado, after all. They all know what that announcement means, even Annie and Troy, who are too young to really remember Columbine.

Annie’s movement breaks the spell, and everyone starts talking at once. Pierce, belligerent and interested, starts speculating about who it might be, stalking around Greendale with a gun. Shirley, terrified and trusting, clasps her hands together and prays to see her babies again. Abed, robotic and removed, talks about “Heathers” and how does he even remember a movie that old anyway? Britta, nearly as belligerent as Pierce and as terrified as Shirley, starts ranting about bullying on campus and the lack of a zero tolerance policy. Troy, childish and scared, just wants to know they’ll be okay, and Annie… Annie is still standing at the doors.

Jeff leaps up and grabs Annie by the arm. He feels her flinch, like she’s anticipating pain, but he ignores it and pulls her back to the table. Where it used to feel safe, but doesn’t anymore.

There are so many windows.

“Everybody, shut up.” He’s never used that tone before. He’s been serious, when the situation calls for it, but never this serious. There’s never been a situation that called for this serious.

The instant silence he gets is almost as terrifying as what is going on outside the doors. Now he has to tell them what to do. What should he tell them to do?

He’s afraid. He’s never been afraid before. Worried, concerned, irritated, all those. He’s had feelings he’s called fear – standing at the top of a mountain on the first ski run of the season, bungee-jumping – but that wasn’t fear. Not like this.

“We need to get away from the windows, get over to where he… where we can’t be seen from someone walking by. It’ll be okay, if we just stay here and stay out of sight.”

They move, abandoning the table instantly.  
“Wait!” Annie. He looks down in surprise. He had her pulled tight to his side, hiding her from the windows, putting himself between her and danger. She’s pale and shaking, but she pulls away with determination. “We need to bring our books with us, so no one can tell there’s anyone in here.”

No one argues. He hates his brain right now, how it can shift so fast between different thoughts, even though that was the thing that saved him in front of juries, but right now he hates that he has time to think ‘so this is what it takes to make them stop arguing’. He knows he’s not a good person, but to waste time on that sort of sarcastic bullshit… he hates his brain.

Books clasped tightly in their arms, they sit on the floor with their backs to the wall, eyes on the windows.

“So anyone else feel like we’re lined up to face a firing squad?” Pierce. Of course Pierce broke the silence. The truly astonishing thing was he’d sat still and quiet for a whole 10 minutes before he said the worst thing it was possible to say.

Everybody turned on him, doing that terrible scream whisper you do when you’re terrified but you can’t not talk because you’re also as angry as you’ve ever been.

“No! Now is not the time to have this argument. We need to stay here, stay quiet and wait for security to escort us out.” His hand slid down Annie’s arm to tangle her fingers with his. “I don’t care what you think about or what you do to entertain yourself… within the bounds of common decency, Pierce… but we will sit here quietly for as long as we have to. Is that clear?”

He glared at Pierce until the older man looked away, then looked over to Britta. She was the other leader. They wouldn’t follow for long if she got mutinous. But she just nodded, and reached down to interlace her fingers with Abed.

Jeff, on the other side of Abed, did the same. Annie grabbed Troy and Troy grabbed Pierce and Pierce grabbed Shirley and they held on tightly, knuckles white.

He knew they couldn’t stay silent. So he didn’t glare when Britta whispered to Abed, only when it got loud enough for him to make out actual words. Soon the grips on hands had relaxed, but not released, as they all whispered quietly, finding someway to take their minds off why they were lined up against the wall, eyes fixed on the windows.

45 minutes later, the knock on the door made Annie flinch again. Made them all flinch, though Jeff would deny that until the day he died. He let go of Annie’s hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as he called back to the security guards.

They all got up together, and Britta unlocked the door and cautiously looked out. The guards were patient – this wasn’t the first room full of freaked out students. They followed the security guards through silent halls, out to the parking lot, where they were told to go home.

“But what happened?” was on everyone’s lips, but the security guards shook their heads and went back for another group of scared people locked in a room and watching the windows.

So instead, they piled into Shirley’s van and turned on the radio.

Four dead at City College, including the gunman. 16 injured, 2 in critical condition. All local schools locked down just in case. They’d lifted the lockdown on elementary schools first, parents desperate to see their children. Then the high schools and finally, Greendale. All schools closed for the remainder of the week.

“I need to get home,” Shirley said. “I need to hold my babies.”

There was no response to that, except to get out of her car, with last hand squeezes and hugs and then to watch her peel out of the parking lot, driving faster than they’d ever seen her.

“I don’t have a home,” Abed said suddenly. “I can’t go back to my dorm until Monday.”

Britta’s mouth opened, ready to offer him a ride to his father’s, but Troy got there first. “You can stay with us, right Pierce? We’ll watch movies and just… chill.”

“An absurd buddy comedy, yes, I can see it,” Abed replied.

Pierce smiled manically. “Oh yes, that’ll be fine. We’ll be best buds and drink beer and talk about chicks.” And they moved off to Pierce’s car, leaving with manly handshakes and hugs for the girls.

Jeff looked at Annie and Britta and could think of nothing to say. He didn’t want them going home to their empty apartments, he knew that. He didn’t want to think about his own empty apartment. But he couldn’t think of an excuse, a reason, no matter how weak to make them stay.

“I don’t want to go home alone.” Annie. Honest, sweet Annie, who could blurt out exactly what she was feeling. Thank god.

He and Britta both rushed to reassure her, Britta offering to take Annie home with her. Leaving Jeff alone.

“Why don’t we go out to dinner first?” Jeff quickly offered. “My treat.”

Britta hesitated, but Annie agreed instantly. Like she knew he didn’t want to be alone either. He shook that thought off. She was just hungry.

They went to a nice restaurant. They talked, sort of. They’d start and then trail off into nothingness, not sure what to say, not sure how to talk about what was on their minds without being the person to start it.

By the time the appetizers got there, Shirley had texted them to say she was home safe, that Andre had picked up the boys when their schools were released from lockdown and she’d see them Monday.

Shortly after that, there was a new post on oldwhitemansays, so they knew Troy and Abed (and Pierce) were home too.

And Britta started to cry.

Britta. He’d have picked Annie to be the one to crack, but instead, Britta dissolved into a red snotty mess and Annie held her hand and rubbed her shoulder and muttered there, there while sending him wide eyed looks and gesturing with her head to get over there.

Oh yeah.

He got out of his chair and knelt on the other side of Britta, holding her hand and saying it’s okay, when it really, really wasn’t okay, but just trying to be comforting. Not his strong suit, but at least he tried.

She was trying to talk through the tears, but he couldn’t understand it at all. He figured it was the same things going through his head.

Why would someone do that? What in his life was so bad that he took it out on a bunch of stupid college kids? What if it was me? What if it was someone I know?

What if I could have done something to stop it?


End file.
